A Trickle of Glacial Water
by kaiserklee
Summary: She's supposed to be Anna of House Arendelle, daughter of General Agdar, sister-in-law to Prince Gustaf of the Southern Isles. But she's from the twenty-first century, and she knows from the history books exactly how this struggle for the throne will turn out - Princess Elsa will become Queen. (Anna's a time-traveler, caught in the intrigue of the siblings of the Southern Isles.)
**a/n:** An adaptation of Scarlet Heart (Bu Bu Jing Xin/Startling By Each Step), a Chinese drama - I highly recommend it. I've wanted to write this since people noticed the similarities between BBJX and Tempest, soooooo here it is. Expect sporadic, drabble-format updates.

* * *

 **A Trickle of Glacier Water**

"Anna! Are you listening?"

She's still not used to the name, but the tap on her shoulder is enough to let her know, yes, she ought to be listening. Anna turns to the person that's supposed to be her sister and puts on her best smile. It's not hard. She likes her sister too much to need to fake it.

"Sorry," Anna says, and Ina shakes her head but there's only amusement on her face.

"It's all right, I didn't expect you to be receptive to all this," Ina says. Her lips turn into a frown, though. She's worried, and for good reason. They've been practicing things as simple as _walking_ , because apparently there's a certain way she had to walk to avoid punishment. "But please try to pay attention."

"Right, right." Anna straightens her back and takes a step – too big of one – adjusts. She grins. "How am I doing? Dainty? Am I ladylike now?"

Ina smiles, and Anna envies her quiet elegance that seems to come so naturally. She feels so clumsy in comparison, like a lumbering child. It's moments like this that Anna remembers they're not really sisters, despite what Ina might believe, and Anna feels guilt all over again for pretending.

"It takes practice," Ina says softly. Anna blinks. It's not the first time that Ina's practically read her mind.

"Did you practice for Gustaf?" Anna asks, winking, but Ina immediately shuts down. At the mention of her husband, Ina just closes her eyes and shakes her head, and she declares the lesson over.

Anna makes a mental note that the topic of her brother-in-law is off limits. She's not sure why Ina and Gustaf are as awkward as strangers, because Gustaf has always been polite and helpful and Anna is quite fond of him.

But then again, she doesn't know a lot of things about this world.

* * *

She's supposed to be Anna of House Arendelle, daughter of General Agdar, sister-in-law to Prince Gustaf of the Southern Isles. Her eighteenth birthday will be in two weeks, and then she'll be sent to the imperial palace, where she'll work as a servant. It's currently the nineteenth-century.

But she's from the twenty-first century.

She remembers running out into the street and getting hit by a car, and when she woke up…

She was here.

She couldn't have imagined it all. She remembers the future – her present – so vividly that she's sure her imagination couldn't have made it all up. Electricity, phones, television, laptops, skyscrapers. But everyone here is convinced that she's Anna. She looks the same, and she's the same age, but she feels like she's wearing someone else's skin. Apparently Anna had also fallen down a flight of stairs, just before _she_ woke up in _her_ body. Had she just…stolen someone else's identity?

Or maybe she really is Anna, and she had imagined all that about the twenty-first century.

No, she's sure that isn't true.

She just doesn't know what is.

* * *

Anna had tried getting back to her world. She went to the stairs where she had apparently fallen and thought about just throwing herself down again, just to see what would happen, but Gerda had stepped in and caught her arm.

"You shouldn't be moving about on your own!" Gerda exclaimed, and Anna had been led back to bed.

Now that she feels well enough, and others have decided she's both well enough to practice palace etiquette and go about her business, she decides to visit the marketplace. Everything is foreign and interesting enough, definitely no Apple or Banana Republic, but this day is special and not because of the sights.

There is a messenger running down the streets, telling everyone to move out of the way and make space, and everyone does just that. When horses come charging down the path, Anna decides to just fling herself into its way. It's close enough to how she got here, even if this isn't quite a Mustang.

Maybe she'll wake up in a hospital.

One with IV drips.

Anna steps out into the road with her arms outstretched, and she sees death approach on the hooves of a wintry beast. She closes her eyes, braces for impact and pain, but all she hears is a sharp whinny, a brush of air; and to her great relief, she is both alive and standing, though not in any time period other than this one. She's not standing for long. She opens her eyes and sees – _feels –_ the horse nudge her nose with its own, and she yelps, trips backwards, falls flat on her ass.

While she's busy wiping her nose, one of the two riders – there _had_ been two, one of them a boy riding a black horse – dismounts and rushes to her side.

"Hey! Are you all right?"

Anna pushes his arm aside and glares up at the rider of the white horse. "Who told you to stop!" she yells, and the blonde girl staring down at her narrows her eyes.

"Do you know the punishment for impeding royal business? It would have been well within my right to mow you down. So I'll ask you: Who told _you_ to get in the way?"

"Hey, Elsa," says the boy, smoothly interjecting himself in between them. "No one was hurt, so let's just keep going! We don't want to be late. Right, Sis? Sis? Hey, Sis, don't just glare at me. Say something."

Elsa nods, slowly, and the boy smiles reassuringly at Anna before remounting his horse.

Before they had sped away, though, Anna is sure that Elsa had given her one last, piercing stare, and this time, Anna is terrified. Because Anna hadn't recognized her face, but she has recognized her name.

If her twenty-first century life isn't a lie and the history books are real, then she just met the future Queen Elsa.


End file.
